the industrial revolution and nineteenth-century society · chapter 19 the industrial revolution...

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CHAPTER 19

The Industrial Revolution

and Nineteenth-Century Society

OUTLINE

I. Introduction—James Watt—wealth from enterprise rather than land

A. An Industrial Revolution

1. From agriculture and craft to large-scale manufacturing

2. Led to capital-intensive enterprises

3. Led to new organization of labor

4. Led to urbanization

B. New forms of energy—water, wind, and wood gave way to coal

1. Led to unprecedented economic growth

2. Altered the balance of humanity

C. Revolution in mechanization limited

1. Gains in productivity

2. Shifted the basis of the economy

3. New livelihoods

4. Did not dispense with human toil—the intensification of human labor

5. New social classes and new social tensions

D. “Industry”—from industriousness to an economic system

E. Partial causes

1. New territories

2. Economic expansion

464 Chapter 19 The Industrial Revolution and Nineteenth-Century Society

3. Expanding networks of trade and finance

4. New markets for goods and sources for raw materials

5. Population growth

F. Regional variations

II. The Industrial Revolution in Britain, 1760–1850

A. Why England?

1. Natural, economic, and cultural resources

2. Small and secure island

3. Empire

4. Ample supply of coal, rivers, and a developed canal system

5. The commercialization of agriculture

a. New techniques and crops, changes in property holding

b. Enclosure

c. Yielded more food for a growing population

d. Concentration of property in fewer hands—displaced farmers went to other jobs

e. Higher profits that would be invested in industry

6. Growing supply of available capital

a. Well-developed banking and credit institutions

b. London as leading center for international trade

7. Investment and entrepreneurship

a. Pursuit of wealth seen as a worthy goal

b. Individuals experienced social mobility, in spite of snobbery from above

c. The British as a commercial people

8. Domestic and foreign markets

a. The British were voracious consumers

b. A well-integrated domestic market

c. No system of internal tolls and tariffs

d. A constantly improving transportation system

9. Favorable political climate

a. Business investors in Parliament promoted improvements

b. Foreign policy responded to commercial needs of the nation

Chapter 19 The Industrial Revolution and Nineteenth-Century Society 465

c. Colonies provided markets for exports

d. Production for export rose 80% between 1750 and 1770

e. The British merchant marine and navy

B. Innovation in the textile industries

1. The British prohibited the import of East Indian cottons

2. Textile manufacturers imported raw cotton from India and the American South

3. Revolutionary breakthroughs

a. John Kay—the flying shuttle (1733)

b. John Hargreaves—the spinning jenny (1764)

c. Richard Arkwright—the water frame (1769)

d. Eli Whitney—the cotton gin (1793)

e. Samuel Crompton—the spinning mule (1799)

4. Textile machines

a. First machines inexpensive enough to be used by spinners in their homes

b. As machines grew in size, they were located in mills and factories

c. By 1780, British cotton textiles flooded the world market—huge British Imports of cotton meant huge

British exports of textiles

5. A revolution in clothing

a. Cotton was light, durable, and washable

b. Large domestic and foreign market for cotton cloth

6. The tyranny of the new industries—William Blake’s “dark Satanic mills”

7. Dismal factory working conditions were addressed and—gradually—the factory acts reduced child labor

and long hours

C. Coal and iron

1. Technological changes

a. Coke smelting, rolling, and puddling

b. Substitution of abundant coal for scarce wood

c. High quality pig iron tied in with exports of coal and iron

d. Thomas Newcomen—fashioned an engine to pump water from mines in 1711

e. James Watt and Matthew Boulton—the steam engine

i. 289 engines in use by 1800

ii. Steam led to railways


D. The coming of railways

1. George Stephenson and the Stockton-to-Darlington line (1825)—train went 15 mph

2. Railway construction as enterprise

a. Risky but profitable

b. Global opportunities—building the infrastructure of nations (e.g., Thomas Brassey)

3. The “navvies”—itinerant railroad workers

4. Toil and technology

5. Steam and speed as a new way of life—deeper coal veins could be mined, goods could be transported,

economic activity intensifies

III. The Industrial Revolution on the Continent

A. A different model of industrialization

B. Reasons for the delay

1. Lack of raw materials, especially coal—initially plentiful wood

2. Poor national systems of transportation

3. Little readily accessible capital

4. Tenacity of the small peasant leaseholder

5. Wars fostered both expansion and retrenchment of industry

C. Economic climate changes after 1815

1. Population growth (parts of France, Belgium, Rhineland, Saxony, Silesia, and Bohemia)

2. New railway construction

3. Older methods of putting-out persisted alongside factory work

4. Governments played a major role in subsidizing industry

a. Subsidies to private companies (railroads and mining)

b. Incentives for and laws favorable to industrialization

c. Limited liability laws

5. Mobilizing capital

a. Joint-stock investment banks

i. France’s Crédit Mobilier (1850s)—Péreire brothers

6. Promoting invention and technological development

a. State-established educational systems


D. Industrialization after 1850

1. Individual British factories remained small, but output was tremendous

a. Iron industry the largest in the world

2. Continental challenges to Britain

a. Mostly in transport, commerce, and government policy

b. Free trade and the removal of trade barriers

c. Guild controls relaxed or abolished

d. Usury and deregulation become commonplace

e. Communications

i. Transatlantic cable (1865)

ii. Telephone (1876)

f. New chemical processes, dyestuffs, and pharmaceuticals

g. New sources of energy—electricity and oil (Nobel and Rothschilds)

h. Internal combustion engine (Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, 1880s)

i. Michelin tires

j. Eastern Europe

i. Developed into concentrated, commercialized agriculture

ii. The persistence of serfdom (through 1860s) deterred industrial development

iii. Some industry in Bohemia and Russia

3. The industrial core

a. Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland

4. The industrial periphery

a. Russia, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia

5. Much industry still in small workshops or homes

E. Industry and empire

1. European nations begin to control the national debts of other countries—loans offered as a means of control

2. Where trade agreements could not be made, force prevailed

3. New networks of trade and interdependence

4. The world economy divided

a. Producers of manufactured goods (Europe)

b. Suppliers of raw materials and buyers of finished goods (everyone else)

5. Toward a global economy (e.g., British imported the majority of wheat)


IV. The social consequences of Industrialization

A. Population growth and the demographic transition

1. Europe: 205 million (1800), 274 million (1850), 414 million (1900), 480 million (1914)—meteoric

growth in Britain, Germany, Russia, not so much in France

2. Explanations

a. Mortality rates were still high

b. Rising fertility

i. Men and women married earlier

ii. Rural manufacturing allowed couples to marry and set up households

iii. More people married

iv. Rapid population growth continued through the early twentieth century—(“leveling off ” occurred

because of female literacy, female employment, no need for large families in urban areas)

B. Life on the land: Rural populations

1. Rural poverty

a. Harsh conditions of the countryside

b. Millions of tiny farms produced a bare subsistence

c. Rising population put pressure on the land

d. Unpredictability of weather and the harvest

e. Mass emigration of peasants away from Europe—Indian Removal Act “cleared” Southeast

United States for immigrants

2. Great Famine of 1845–1849 in Ireland

a. Potato blight

i. No alternative food source

b. At least 1 million Irish died of starvation

c. Forced 1.5 million people to leave Ireland for good

3. The role of the state

a. Became more sympathetic to commercialized agriculture

b. Encouraged the elimination of small farms and the creation of larger farms (e.g., Britain, Spain, Russia)

4. Serfdom

a. Landowners and serfs had little incentive to improve farming or land management (e.g., France)

b. Serfdom made it difficult to buy and sell land freely

c. An obstacle to the commercialization and consolidation of agriculture


5. Industrialization in the countryside

a. Improved communication networks

b. Government intervention in the countryside

c. Centralized bureaucracies

i. Made it easier to collect taxes and conscript soldiers from peasant families

6. Rural violence

a. Captain Swing, southern England (1820s)—mythical leader of rebels

b. Insurrections against landlords, taxes, and laws curtailing customary rights

c. Russian serf uprisings as a result of bad harvests and exploitation

d. Governments seemed incapable of dealing with rural discontent

C. The urban landscape

1. Growth of cities

2. Urbanization moved from northwest Europe to the southeast

3. London’s population grew from 676,000 (1750) to 2.3 million (1850); that of Paris from 560,000

to 1.3 million

4. Overcrowding and poor sanitation

5. Construction of housing lagged well behind population growth

6. Governments passed some legislation to rid cities of slums

D. The social question

1. Urgent questions about criminality, prostitution, disease, water supply, and unemployment

2. Governments addressed these issues through social engineering

a. Police forces

b. Public health

c. Urban regulation and planning

3. Backdrop for later revolutions

4. Inspiration for novelists

a. Charles Dickens

b. Victor Hugo

5. Critics of the urban scene

a. Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850)

b. Victor Hugo (1802–1885)

c. Charles Dickens (1812–1870)


E. Sex in the City

1. Prostitution

a. Seen as one of the dangers and corruptions of urban life

b. Some prostitutes were rich courtesans, but most were poor, working-class women

c. Single women vulnerable to sexual exploitation

d. Abandonment and rape—a “tarnished” woman could not obtain “respectable” employment

F. Industry and the environment

1. Land and water

a. Redirecting rivers—dams

b. Canal construction

i. Germany changes the direction and shortens the Rhine River

2. Air and the urban environment

a. Air pollution—coal

b. Increased demand for wood leads to deforestation

3. Water pollution

a. Fertile breeding grounds for cholera, typhus, and tuberculosis

b. Toxic water was the second critical environmental hazard

c. London and Paris led the way in sewage systems, but they emptied into the Thames and Seine

V. The middle classes

A. Literature as observer

1. The French and Industrial Revolutions had replaced one aristocracy with another

a. From rank, status, and privilege to wealth and social class

B. Who were the middle classes?

1. Not a homogeneous group in terms of income or occupation

2. Upward mobility almost impossible without education

a. Easier in Britain than on the Continent

b. Middle class to aristocracy (e.g., William Gladstone)

3. The examination system

4. “Getting ahead”

a. Intelligence, pluck (luck), and hard work

b. Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (1859)—stressed middle-class respectability


5. Respectability included:

a. A code of behavior

b. Financial independence

c. Providing for family

d. Avoiding gambling and debt

e. Merit and character

f. Hard work

g. Live modestly and soberly

6. Aspirations and codes, not social realities

C. Private life and middle-class identity

1. The family

2. A well-governed household served as an antidote to the confusion of the business world

D. Gender and the cult of domesticity

1. The respectable home

a. Rituals, hierarchies, and distinctions

2. The “separate sphere”

a. Women were supposed to live in subordination to men—wife had to give everything to husband

b. Boys educated in secondary schools, girls educated at home

c. The idea of legal inequality between men and women

3. Middle-class identity—neither aristocratic nor working-class values

4. Middle-class woman’s role was the “angel in the house”

a. Middle-class women to be free from unrelenting toil

b. The moral education of children

5. The “cult of domesticity”

a. Central to middle-class Victorian thinking about women

b. The reassessment of femininity

c. Keeping the household functioning smoothly and harmoniously

d. The servant as the mark of middle-class status

6. Outside the home

a. Few options to earn a living

b. Voluntary societies and campaigns for social reform

c. Protestantism and charity


d. Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)

e. George Sand (1804–1876)—French writer who challenged Victorian mores

7. Queen Victoria (r. 1837–1901)

a. Reflected contemporary feminine virtues of moral probity and dutiful domesticity

b. Successful queen because she embodied middle-class virtues

E. “Passionlessness”: Gender and sexuality

1. Victorian sexuality usually seen as synonymous with anxiety, prudishness, and ignorance

a. Etiquette books versus reality

2. Beliefs about sexuality came from convictions about separate spheres for men and women

3. Scientists taught that specific characteristics were inherent to each sex

a. Men and woman had different roles

b. Auguste Comte and “biological philosophy”

4. Women’s moral superiority embodied in their “passionlessness”

5. Absence of reliable contraceptives—birth control a taboo topic

a. Danger of frequent pregnancies

b. Queen Victoria used anesthesia for childbirth

F. Middle-class life in public

1. Houses and furnishings as symbols of material prosperity

a. Solidly built and heavily decorated

i. Homes were built to last

ii. Rooms crowded with furniture, art, carpets, and wall hangings

2. Residential life

a. Moved to the west side of cities

b. Civic architectural landmarks in center of town

c. Middle class lived away from the city, but managed the affairs of the city

3. Leisure—transportation led to the development of resorts

VI. Working-class life

A. General observations

1. Working classes divided into several subgroups

a. Based on skill, wages, gender, and workplace

2. Some movement from unskilled to skilled (required children with education)

3. Movement from skilled to unskilled due to technological change


4. Housing was unhealthy and unregulated

5. The daily grind of life for the working-class wife

B. Working women in the industrial landscape

1. Problems observed

a. Promiscuous mixing in workshops

b. Children left unattended

c. Industrial accidents

d. Women laboring alongside men

2. Women’s work not new—industrialization made it more visible

3. Women workers were paid less and were less troublesome

a. Most began to work at age 10 or 11

b. They put their children out to wet nurses or brought them to the mills

4. Gender division of labor

a. Most women labored at home or in small workshops (“sweatshops”)

b. Domestic service

i. Less visible

ii. Low wages

iii. Coercive sexual relationships

5. Working-class sexuality

a. Different from middle-class counterpart

b. Increase in illegitimate births—related to weaker family ties, sporadic male employment, women

needed temporary relationships to survive

c. A life apart: “Class-consciousness”

6. The factory created common experiences and difficulties

a. Denied skilled laborers pride in their crafts

b. Guild protections abolished

c. Decline of apprenticeship

7. The factory

a. Long hours under dirty and dangerous conditions

b. The imposition of new routines and discipline

i. The factory whistle

ii. The pace of the machine


iii. The division of labor into specialized steps

iv. Machinery as the new tyrant

8. Working-class vulnerability

a. Unemployment, sickness, accidents, and family problems

b. The varying price of food

c. Seasonal unemployment

d. Markets for manufactured goods were small and unstable

e. Cyclical economic depressions

f. Severe agricultural depressions

9. Working-class survival

a. Families worked several small jobs

b. Pawned possessions

c. Joined self-help societies and fraternal associations

d. Early socialist movement

10. Social segregation of the city

a. Implied that working people lived a life apart from others

b. Class differences embedded in experience and beliefs

VII. Conclusion

A. The Industrial Revolution as major turning point in the history of the world

B. The global balance of power

C. Technology as progress

D. The new wealth and the new poverty

E. Social identities and class-consciousness

GENERAL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Why did the Industrial Revolution take place in Britain first? What conditions existed in Britain that did not exist

elsewhere?

2. Was the Industrial Revolution inevitable? Was it a spontaneous or a planned event? What were the alternatives to

industrialization?

3. Did the free-enterprise system and the “invisible hand” of the marketplace correct abuses and improve conditions, or

was government intervention required?


4. Why was railway building one of the keys to the industrialization of Europe and North America? How did the

construction of railways require new sources of capital, as well as new types of management?

5. What social effects did industrialization have on both the peasantry and urban workers?

6. Describe the code of respectability as it existed among the middle classes of nineteenth-century Britain and Europe.

Was such a code a reality or an ideal?

7. Did the Industrial Revolution change a general understanding of gender in the nineteenth century? In what ways did

women become more visible?

8. How did the factory system create class-consciousness among factory workers?

DOCUMENT DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

The Factory System, Science, and Morality: Two Views

1. According to Dr. Andrew Ure, why was industrialization good for Britain? How can the blessings of “physicomechanical

science” lead to the improvement of humanity?

2. What criticism did Engels level at Ure and other industrialization optimists? Why did Engels think conditions for

workers were getting worse, not better?

3. What consequences do these two writers see for society in the wake of technological change? What assumptions do

they make about the relationship between economic development and the social order?

Learning to Live in a Global Economy

1. What constellation of private and national interests were at play in the relationships portrayed in image A? What

significance might contemporaries have attached to the possibility that the British might have chosen to buy their

cotton from an Asian source “over the way” rather than from North America?

2. In image B, what is the message of the cartoon’s suggestion that the slave and the worker might find equality only in

the fact that they are both in chains? What was at stake in comparing a worker with a slave in mid-nineteenth century

Europe? Why does the caption read “Poor Consolation”?

3. How does the racial imagery of these cartoons relate to their intended message?

Thomas Malthus on Population and Poverty

1. What assumptions about human behavior are contained in Malthus’s argument that population will always increase

more quickly than the available food supply? What possible checks on population growth does he consider? Why

does he say that misery is “a necessary consequence” and vice only “highly probable”? Why does he conclude that

society will never be “perfectible”?


2. The history of the Industrial Revolution and population growth in Europe in the nineteenth century seemed to prove

that Malthus’s belief in the ecological constraints on population growth were ill founded. What events (that he could

not have predicted) changed the equilibrium between subsistence and population during this period?

Marriage, Sexuality, and the Facts of Life

1. The French doctor states that the impulse to have sexual relations is “one of the most powerful instincts” given to

humans by nature, while simultaneously claiming that this natural instinct is “liable to be perverted”. What does this

reveal about his attitude toward “nature”?

2. What does he mean by “genesiac frauds”? Who is being deceived by this fraud? What consequences for individuals

and for society as a whole does the doctor fear from this deception?

3. What does the story of Mrs. Pettigrew’s death reveal about the dangers of childbirth and the state of obstetric

medicine in the nineteenth century?

Women and the Working Class

1. How did Flora explain the challenge facing individual workers and their families?

2. What is the goal of the Workers’ Union that Flora proposed?

3. How did Flora use the history of the French Revolution to make her point about including women’s rights in the

movement for workers’ collective action?

CORE OBJECTIVES

1. Understand the circumstances that allowed for industrialization to begin in Great Britain.

2. Identify the industries that were the first to adopt new systems for mechanical production and the regions in Europe

in which they thrived.

3. Describe the changes in the nature of work, production, and employment that occurred as a result of the

mechanization of industry.

4. Explain the effects of industrialization on the environment and the social life in Europe, especially in the new urban

centers associated with industrial development.

5. Identify the essential characteristics of the new “middle classes” in nineteenth-century Europe and their differences

from the property-owning groups prior to the Industrial Revolution.


TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER ELABORATION

• Describe how the Industrial Revolution dramatically altered the social, economic, and environmental landscape

of Europe.

• Explain how the Industrial Revolution altered the way individuals worked. Discuss why it has been called the

“industrious revolution”.

• Describe the conditions in Great Britain that facilitated the beginning of the Industrial Revolution there. Focus

particularly on the agricultural changes, as well as the social changes that encouraged the aristocracy to welcome an

increase in wealthy individuals.

• Discuss the role of foreign markets and the existence of a highly capable merchant marine in the development

of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.

• Describe the significant technological developments in the textile industry. Discuss how these changes enabled

increased production and improved quality.

• Explain how the development of the new machinery drastically altered working conditions for workers

in Great Britain.

• Describe the relationship between improved iron production and utilization of British coal. Discuss the development

of the steam engine.

• Describe the significant increase in the number of miles of railroad track across Europe in the nineteenth century.

• Discuss the significant role that human laborers played in the building of the railroad. Describe how British railroad

companies became wealthy building the infrastructure of other nations.

• Describe how the Industrial Revolution spread to Continental Europe. Discuss the challenges and opportunities

involved with exporting the Industrial Revolution to mainland Europe.

• Explain how the governments in Continental Europe played a greater role in the spread of the Industrial Revolution.

• Compare and contrast the spread of the Industrial Revolution in England and in Continental Europe.

• Describe the dramatic expansion in industrialization after 1850. Explain the conditions that facilitated the rapid spread

of industrialization.

• Explain how the Industrial Revolution impacted eastern Europe differently than western Europe.

• Discuss how industrialization had transformed Europe by 1870.

• Describe the significant growth in population in nineteenth-century Europe and describe the demographic

circumstances that enabled it.

• Discuss the lifestyle of a peasant in the countryside in western Europe.

• Describe the violence that occurred in the rural areas in resistance to new industrial machinery.


• Discuss the rapid pace of industrialization in Europe and its consequences for European cities and their residents.

Describe life in a nineteenth-century European city.

• Explain the environmental impact of the Industrial Revolution. Describe the prevalence of toxic air and water.

• Discuss the emergence of new social issues and questions during this period—increases in crime, disease, prostitution,

alcoholism, and unemployment. Describe some early efforts at social engineering by European governments.

• Define middle class. Describe what characterized middle-class family life during this period. Discuss the emergence

of the middle class as a central feature of nineteenth-century social and economic life.

• Discuss the emergence of the idea of “middle-class respectability”.

• Describe the relationship between men and women during this period. Explore the notion of “separate spheres” for

men and women. Compare and contrast the notion of “spiritual equality” and legal disequality.

• Discuss the role that women played in the home. Explain the limited options for unmarried women outside

of the home.

• Compare and contrast the stereotype of Victorian sexuality with the reality of sexuality during this period.

Discuss the scientific thinking about the roles and characteristics of women.

• Describe how the ideal of “passionless sexuality” emerged and why women were understood to be morally superior

to men in that regard.

• Compare and contrast the lives and circumstances of the middle class and the working class during this period.

• Describe the shifting patterns in female labor among working-class women. Explain the different types of work women

were doing and how society responded to these changes.

• Explain the lifestyle of an unmarried, working-class woman. Discuss the characteristics of sexuality for this class

of women.

• Define class-consciousness. Describe the vulnerability of working-class employees, and how life changed for all workers

during this period.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Allen R. C. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Ashton T. S. The Industrial Revolution, 1760–1830. Oxford University Press, 1998.

Beaudoin S. M. The Industrial Revolution (Problems in European Civilization). Wadsworth Publishing, 2003.

Berlanstein L. R. The Industrial Revolution and Work in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Routledge, 1992.

Burnette J. Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Chapman S. Merchant Enterprise in Britain: From the Industrial Revolution to World War I.

Cambridge University Press, 2004.


Hobsbawm E. J. Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution. New Press, 1999.

Mokyr J. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700–1850. Yale University Press, 2010.

More C. Understanding the Industrial Revolution. Routledge, 2000.

Morgan K. The Birth of Industrial Britain: Social Change, 1750–1850. Longman, 2004.

Musson A. E. Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Classics in the History and Philosophy of Science).

Routledge, 1969.

O’Brien P. The Industrial Revolution and British Society. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Overton M. Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy, 1500–1850.


Pounds N. J. G. The Culture of the English People: Iron Age to the Industrial Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Stearns P. N. The Industrial Revolution in World History. Westview Press, 2007.

Steedman C. Master and Servant: Love and Labour in the English Industrial Age. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Vries Jan de. The Economy of Europe in Age of Crisis, 1600–1750. Cambridge University Press, 1976.

Vries Jan de. The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and Household Economy, 1650 to the Present.


Wrigley E. A. Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England.


Wyatt L. The Industrial Revolution. Greenwood, 2008.

Zlotnick S. Women, Writing, and the Industrial Revolution. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

SUGGESTED FEATURE FILMS

■ Great Expectations. 118 min. B/W. 1946. Universal Pictures. David Lean directed this Dickens classic, which is

excellent for the way in which it captures the atmosphere of nineteenth-century London.

■ Hard Times. 100 min. Color. 1994. PBS. Masterpiece Theatre’s adaptation of Dickens’s novel about the life of a

Victorian family, set in a grim, dark place in the north of England called Coketown.

■ Middlemarch. 90 min. Color. 1994. BBC in association with WGBH. Masterpiece Theatre’s six-part adaptation of the

George Eliot novel set against the background of the Industrial Revolution.

■ Modern Times. 87 min. B/W. 1936. United Artists. Although this Charlie Chaplin masterpiece is about the twentieth

century, it remains a solid introduction to the dehumanizing effects of industry. Timeless.


SUGGESTED CLASSROOM FILMS

■ Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations. 28 min. Color. 1975. Insight Media. The life, career, and ideas of Scottish

economist and philosopher Adam Smith.

■ The Ascent of Man: The Drive for Power. 52 min. Color. 1974. Time-Life Films. Jacob Bronowski explores the

eighteenth-century economic revolution.

■ Coal, Blood, and Iron: Industrialization. 55 min. Color. 1991. Insight Media. Examines the technological and social

transformations centering on the use of coal as fuel.

■ The Industrial Revolution. 20 min. each. Color. 1992. Films for the Humanities and Sciences. This series explores the

Industrial Revolution in Britain through the approach of case studies: I. Working Lives; II. Evolving Transportation

Systems; III. The Railway Age; IV. Harnessing Steam; and V. The Growth of Towns and Cities.

■ The Industrial Revolution. 44 min. Color. 1995. Insight Media. Two-part series that traces the Industrial Revolution

from its origins through its momentous growth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

■ Industrial Revolution. 44 min. Color. 2004. Educational Video Network, Inc. Changes that occurred in manufacturing

during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are explained. Manufacturing processes prior to the Industrial

Revolution are discussed. Developments in the textile and iron-making industries are outlined and the further changes

that improvements brought about are considered.

■ The Industrial Revolution: A Program in Three Parts. 87 min. Color. n.d. Liberty Fund, Inc. The “Industrial Revolution”

series focuses on England’s transformation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which initiated a process of

economic growth and social and political change that some call the greatest economic discontinuity in history. The

significance of the Industrial Revolution is explained by showing its causes and consequences.

■ The Industrial Revolution and the Industrial World: Part One. 30 min. Color. 1989. Insight Media. Looks not only at

changes in industry, but also the related changes in commerce, agriculture, and communications.

■ Just the Facts: The Industrial Revolution. 50 min. Color. 2007. Cerebellum Corporation. Scholars from the University of

Warwick (England) and UCLA share their knowledge about the Industrial Revolution in this enlightening video.


■ Late Blight and the Irish Potato Famine. 25 min. Color. 1996. American Phytopathological Society. Designed for

college and advanced high school students, this twenty-five-minute DVD examines the interactions of biological and

social factors during the Irish Potato Famine, which started in 1845 as a result of a potato disease epidemic. Included is a

brief instructor’s guide that offers an overview of the video material, sample questions to stimulate class discussion, a

glossary, illustrations of two key concepts, and a list of literature references.

■ Material World. 30 min. Color. 2003. Films for the Humanities and Sciences. Shows how England’s insatiable appetite

for tea, cotton, and china fueled that country’s Industrial Revolution. Part of the What the Industrial Revolution Did for Us

series.

■ Mill Times. 60 min. Color. 2006. PBS Direct. This program takes viewers from Manchester, England, to Lowell,

Massachusetts, explaining technological changes that transformed the making of textiles, a key component of the

Industrial Revolution sweeping across Europe and America in the late eighteenth century.

■ Trains Unlimited—Railway Marvels. 50 min. Color. 2006. A & E Home Video. Incredible footage and photos capture

the struggles and triumphs, innovation, and effort that combined to create the quarter million mile network of tracks that

crossed the nation by 1920.

SOLUTIONS TO CHAPTER QUESTIONS

The Factory System, Science, and Morality: Two Views

1. According to Andrew Ure, industrialization was the instrument that set Great Britain above the rest of the world. It

was also an excellent opportunity for the poor to improve their lot in life. He stated “that the driving force (of the

machines) leaves the attendant nearly nothing at all to do”. . . . In his mind the poor were lazy complainers.

2. Engels researched industrialization and realized that as the machines improved, workers lost their jobs. The only

group that benefited from industrialization was the one that included the few people at the top; the rest were

exploited.

3. Ure believed that society would become wealthier and improve because of the modernizations; if the poor were left

behind it was their own fault. Engels saw the oppression and degradation of the working class by the wealthy elite, who

used them up and replaced them like machine parts. According to Engels, the poor are essentially pawns of the rich.


Learning to Live in a Global Economy

1. In Image A, the character John Bull represented textile manufactures. Bull was looking at the two American figures

that were fighting, which represented the Civil War in the United States. The statement below represented the

British attitude toward American commerce. The British could always turn to India for their supply of cotton. Note

the deferential attitude of the Indian shopkeeper.

2. The Poor Consolation image is very powerful. The message to the French public was that the working class was in the

same position as a slave. An armed guard looked on as the worker compared himself to a slave. The chains represent

servitude and the elite’s disregard for both groups. This was a scathing indictment against the French government.

3. The racial imagery could not have been more obvious. The Indian merchant was begging for British business and the

slave was half naked, chained, and in the street.

Thomas Malthus on Population and Poverty

1. Malthus believed that Mother Nature created the perfect system, as far as plant and animals went. The problem was

mankind. He believed that mankind would always produce beyond the food supply and the only answer was famine,

disease, poverty, and infant malnutrition as “positive” checks on population growth. He believed that misery and vice

were natural occurrences within a society that could not contain its natural moral boundaries.

2. Malthus could not have predicted the advancements in disease prevention and farming. Modern society’s ability to

grow an excess of crops, such as wheat and rice, changed the lives of millions.

Marriage, Sexuality, and the Facts of Life

1. The French doctor believed that it was our nature to have sexual relations without any contraceptives. He believed

that when husbands and wives used contraceptives, they could ruin their health by not remaining within the natural

boundaries of sexual relations.

2. When he discussed “genesiac frauds”, he meant contraception. He specifically mentioned withdrawal and condom

use. Couples are being deceived (e.g., due to excessive sexual relations, the wife suffers from kidney pain, abdominal

pains, inflammation of the uterus, and nervous disorders. The husband suffers from nervous disorders).

3. The story of Mrs. Pettigrew’s death (sadly played out into modern times) was an example of the need for contraception.

More than likely, Mrs. Pettigrew (like so many of her contemporaries) had been bred to death.

Women and the Working Class

1. The government will not help the workers. The grievances include unemployment, lack of proper health care, no

unemployment benefits (yet begging is forbidden) and lack of food.


2. The Union would unite the workers and provide shelters for the disenfranchised, both old and young.

3. Before 1789, a poor person was little more than a “beast of burden”. After the Revolution, poor males obtained

citizenship and rights. While commending males for facilitating these reforms, Tristan demands that women be

accorded the same liberties as men.

REVIEWING THE OBJECTIVES

1. The Industrial Revolution in Europe began in Great Britain mainly because of the topography, such as waterways;

the natural resources, such as coal; and the inventive nature of British individuals.

2. The industries that were suited for technological developments were mainly coal and textile production. Most of the

machines were used in those two industries. They were found in Belgium, Germany, and France.

3. The nature of work and production was forever changed because of technological developments. People were

horrifically exploited by their employers and used as if they were part of the new machines themselves. Local

producers and urban merchants became interdependent.

4. Rich and poor felt the larger changes in European society. The merchant class increased their wealth beyond measure

and the poor were degraded and abused. Meanwhile, the middle class increased in size. Overall, people acquired

more possessions.

5. The middle class mainly consisted of well-to-do merchants, educators, lawyers, doctors, and upper management

bankers and factory supervisors. The middle-class people tended to be the most “respectable”. They embraced

morality, and comfort without ostentation. Women did not work outside the home; they would possess a modicum

of education and perhaps employ some servants.

PEOPLE, IDEAS, AND EVENTS IN CONTEXT

1. The practice of “enclosure” was the taking of small commonly held tracts of land and converting them to large fenced

fields that were privately owned and managed by commercial landlords.

2. James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in 1768; this machine combined spinning wheels to work in tandem.

Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. The cotton gin rolled through the fields separating the cotton from the

stem. The cotton gin expanded cotton production, thus bolstering the textile industry.

3. The significance of the European Empire for the native peoples was effectively genocide. The European nations

exported raw materials from their respective colonies and enriched themselves.


4. The effects of population growth on the urban population were dismal. Major European cities were polluted, crime

ridden, filthy, and infested with disease. The peasantry were either used as farm workers to feed the doubling

population or exploited in factories.

5. The environmental changes that occurred with the onset of industrialization were disastrous. The air was polluted

from burning coal, waterways were spoiled from factory run-off, and heavy metals seeped into the ground poisoning

food sources.

6. The Irish Potato Famine began with the failure of the potato crop in Ireland due to a fungus, first in 1845 and then

again in 1846 and 1847. The Irish peasantry was almost entirely dependent upon the potato (one of the few crops

that could grow in that climate) and when the fungus hit, over 1 million Irish died. Thomas Malthus would have

considered the potato famine a necessary form of population control.

THINKING ABOUT CONNECTIONS

1. The Industrial Revolution stimulated a shift in people’s conception of time, from cyclical and constant to

straightforward, ever-changing progression. For centuries, landowners used armies of peasants to cultivate their

lands. Generations of peasants did the same work their ancestors did, with very little variation. With the advent of the

Industrial Revolution, fewer peasants were needed to work the land, forcing many to leave the countryside in order

to support themselves and their families. Some moved to cities, which were ill-prepared to deal with the massive

influx of people, while others emigrated to the United States, South America, northern Africa, Australia, New

Zealand, and Siberia. The Industrial Revolution created new economic opportunities in these places, but it also

introduced new kinds of poverty. People became more aware of the disparity between classes, and urgent social

questions about criminality, disease, behavior, and unemployment. Awareness of these changes and social instability

gave the sensation that time was hurtling ever faster into a dimly perceived future.

2. When a product is quickly, easily, and consistently accessible, it becomes disposable to the people who need it and

use it time and time again. Many of the innovations of the Industrial Revolution harnessed the power of machines in

a way that far outweighed and outcompeted human power. Rather than dispense with human toil, these innovations

devalued human labor and exploited it to an unprecedented extent. Not only was human labor reorganized, but

wealth and power was redistributed very unequally, as those who owned these new machines in their factories reaped

unimaginable profits. This scenario continues today, as technology has become far finer tuned than in the Industrial

Revolution. And just as human labor was devalued in the Industrial Revolution, information—both general and

personal—has become devalued and disposable in a similar way today. Social networking sites like Facebook believe

they have the right to sell the personal information of their users to any variety of companies, an argument that would

have been unthinkable even ten years ago.


3. Technological advances have occurred with far greater rapidity than in the nineteenth century. Moreover, workers in

say 1830 needed to acquire and/or possess a less comprehensive skill set than workers of today. Unskilled laborers

could obtain factory work in the nineteenth century; today they would be unemployed or at least underemployed.

Skilled craftspeople, especially those in Third World countries that rely upon their handcrafted products to survive,

have been edged out of the market by machines that can accomplish cruder and cheaper replicas of the unique, high-

quality goods that these craftspeople produce.

the industrial revolution and nineteenth-century society · chapter 19 the industrial revolution...

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